FORENSIC ANTHROPOLOGY FROM INDIVIDUAL IDENTIFICATION TO PERSON IDENTIFICATION. A REVIEW

G. C. Curcă, I. Diac,

Abstract: Forensic anthropology emerges from the ground centered on skull examinations which were told to give answers to all questions. Identification was the paramount task in front of any anthropologist. Then the skeleton came into interest of the forensic anthropologist as the inflicted trauma lesions examination and taphonomy develops. Forensic anthropology followed a long road from anthropologists such as Lacassagne or Minovici in late 19th century until the recently use of stable isotopes in the late decade. Several historical periods were stepped on. Whenever the forensic anthropologist is a forensic doctor specialist born in legal medicine or an anthropologist with legal medicine competence, forensic anthropology examination need interdisciplinary teams for broadening expertise and competence. We no longer call forensic anthropology a physical specialty because even if the tasks gravity around the human remains, all modern technologies, i.e. micro-XRF, micro-CT, stable isotopes, spectroscopy, etc., allows reconstitution not only of the physical elements of a dead individual but of a living individual, receiving a physionomy, a way of life and finally, a name and a model of consciousness to rebuild and recover the person of the deceased individual. Therefore, another paradigmatic change has moved anthropology with its tasks and methods from individual identification to person identification. Modern values in forensic anthropology and generally speaking on anthropology mirror the moral values of the scientific European space in 1937 made vocal at the tribune of the 17th Congress of International Anthropology in Bucharest, a rare paradox for a Congress of anthropology in an European space full of eugenics where the great force of science and reconciliation suppressed all negative concepts and behaviours. We could define forensic anthropology as a medical specialization that, at the request of justice, aims to identify all human remains, the circumstances in which those individuals died and lived to conclude finally to a person identification.
Keywords: forensic anthropology, micro-XRF, micro-CT, Fourier spectroscopy, stable isotopes, identification of the individual, identification of the person, rebuilding and recovery of a person.